Cancer drugs cure ‘for the rich’
Revolutionary new drugs that could cure terminal cancer should be on the market here within a few years but patients will have to be ‘‘super rich’’ to afford them.
One four-dose treatment of the drugs now under clinical trials costs about $140,000 while other ongoing courses can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
New Zealand Cancer Society chief executive Claire Austin said while the scientific breakthroughs were good news, they also raised ethical issues around patient expectations and access to the costly treatments.
‘‘What we need to address is how do we make it affordable and accessible. You have to be super rich to afford these drugs. What value are they if people can’t afford them?’’ Austin said.
A British trial brought ‘‘spectacular’’ results, with tumours shrinking or disappearing completely in half of inoperable skin cancer patients.
The findings came as a series of studies showed that the drugs that use the body’s existing defences to combat the disease were effective against some of the most deadly tumours, including lung, bowel, liver and head cancers.
Experts gathered in Chicago at the world’s largest cancer conference said the method was likely to become a once-in-a-generation advance, ranking alongside chemotherapy and surgery as one of the ‘‘pillars of oncology’’.
Patients given months to live might survive to enjoy a normal lifespan while in other cases tumours could vanish completely.
Administered through a drip every few weeks the drugs are generally less debilitating than chemotherapy but do have sideeffects including inflammation, eczema, tiredness and liver problems.
The Wellington-based Malaghan Institute of Medical Research is part of the global drive for cancer cures, including research into improving cancer immunotherapy and drugs.
Director Graham Le Gros said the findings had created ‘‘extreme excitement and hype’’ in the global medical community.
Similar results were reported at an international cancer conference earlier this year, he said, with some trials reporting up to 80 per cent of patients responding positively to the drug, in combination with other therapies.
‘‘Of course we will have to wait for the next two to three years to see if these response rates translate into cures or extended survival. Certainly it is a major breakthrough as these drugs in some cases provide complete cures – something that has never happened with chemotherapy.’’